Putting your money where your mouth is, is probably the only way to obtain acceptance for semi-autonomous driving systems.
I imagine airplane manufacturers have long been on the hook if their autopilot engages Kill All Humans mode, despite the best efforts of Boeing's lawyers to blame some of the humans their software killed.
Lot's of disclaimers. Plus what happens if the system disengages and you crash 5 sec after because you were not expecting to? Technically they are not responsible anymore it seems.
From the article:
"...Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems, and no construction zones. Eligible roads must be mapped by Mercedes for Drive Pilot use (similar to GM SuperCruise); the automaker has already mapped every such highway in Germany, and most of those in Nevada and California. The system will only operate during daytime, in reasonably clear weather, without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning. And no, you can't close your eyes or go to sleep while it operates..."
"[...] Unlike all currently available driver-assist systems, Drive Pilot is designed to give drivers a 10-second warning before switching off; engineers had to make sure that, in every situation, the system would safely and faultlessly hand over control. [...]"
> Technically they are not responsible anymore it seems.
No, technically whether they or liable or not reverts to normal principles of product liability, rather than their special acceptance of liability.
But manufacturers liability for harms caused by their products, while varying in detail from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, tend to be pretty broad in most of the West (incl. the US, despite it's otherwise weak consumer laws.)
Are there even any limited-access divided highways in California where speeds under 40 mph are safe? I'm not sure what they would have mapped.
As the default speed limit for such a highway would presumably be 65 mph (and traffic usually much faster), anywhere with such lowered speeds would presumably have special circumstances that would probably make it unsuitable.
The guaranteed 10 second handoff is impressive, however.
Autopilots in airplanes have nothing to do with autonomous driving.
Airplane autopilots are so simple they they can be implemented with entirely analog circuits. They are simple feedback control loops that operate off a single scalar variable in each axis.
There is ample time for the pilot to correct any “mistakes” the autopilot makes.
There is no expectation that the autopilot operates independently of the pilot’s supervision and judgement.
In terms of decision-making and autonomy and liability - an airplane autopilot is really analogous to cruise control in a car, nothing more. It operates the flight controls to maintain simple parameters chosen by the pilot, and that’s all.
On top of that, aviation autopilots operate in one of the most controlled and stable environments. Ground based individual traffic is the polar opposite of that.
As aviation people eloquently put it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory I think there should be a correlative 'small road theory', if only to underscore the difference.
Except the general public seem to massively over-estimate how capable aircraft Autopilots are, and then expect Tesla's Autopilot to live up to their inflated expectations.
the general public doesn't fly planes, so to them every flight is getting on a plane, falling asleep, and magically teleporting from one city to another. They have no perspective on just how much an autopilot doesn't do.
AFAIK automatic landing systems just get the plane into the right 'landing parameters range', but won't take action if anything unforeseen happens (like a blocked runway).
Right the Garmin Autonomi Autoland system is intended only for emergency use to get the airplane on the ground if the (single) pilot is incapacitated. It's not intended for routine autonomous flight.
I think the earlier comments are referring to CAT 3 auto land systems using technologies like ILS, which are used routinely and are good for 0ft visibility. That is, approach in cloud down to the ground
That's true, but some aircraft are now equipped with TCAS and GCAS which will automatically seize partial control from the pilot and maneuver to avoid some types of crashes. So far I think those systems have been 100% reliable but the manufacturers would be liable if they caused a crash.
I'm talking solely about liability when the system that you sell as being able to operate on behalf of a human gets it wrong.
Comparisons of the systems is irrelevant to the very simple point I made - putting your money where your mouth is garners trust.
As for your claim about autopilot being simple, and humans having ample time to correct its mistakes, well, two 737 MAXs and one Air France flight are very straightforward counterarguments.
Yeah, that's not autopilot. FLCS, fly-by-wire, drive-by-wire are all different things. Autopilot is really specific. If you want to discuss this productively, you should probably learn the difference.
I apologise that I got the precise terminology wrong when I used a term that most humans understand to mean "when the computer controls stuff your plane is doing on your behalf".
My biggest regret about getting it wrong is that it gives pedants something to fixate on and split hairs about, in lieu of engaging with the actual point.
Actually that is exactly the right thing to do! If something goes wrong when Autopilot is on, I think the manufacturer have to prove that it was a human error and not otherwise.
We don't want to say "no mistakes allowed" though, that would be going too far.
It's good for manufacturers to err on on the side of limited capabilities to keep things safer, but we don't want them to err too far in that direction. And if they're providing ongoing insurance with no revenue, that's an incentive to be overly restrictive.
I was imagining a play like this utilizing insurance to smooth out the wrinkles. Seems like a fairly good bet that the restrictions are designed to essentially eliminate fault in the event of an accident.
"If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours."
Only legally speaking. If the car drives me into an incoming truck, it still is very much my problem.
So currently it is only enabled for very clear situations, driving under 40 mp/h(60 kmh) in trafic jams on a motorway (where there usually is a physical separation to the other lane, except in roadbuilding situations, but I would guess, that the autopilot will be disabled then).
So it should be quite safe. Otherwise they would not accept the risk. German car makers are very conservative.
Well, that is the catch: you can engage the system only on certain roads which also happen to have a divider between the traffic directions. So it is basically impossible to be facing an incoming truck there.
Right, the detection of obstacles needs to work perfectly. This is where LIDAR is good at, it gives pretty precise 3D information about your immediate surroundings. Especially when comparing with high resolution maps, obstacle detection should be very good.
My mom is a doctor and once was called to the site of a frontal crash that happened at 100 km/h (two cars moving at 50). Only to examine the bodies, there was no one left to save.
Mythbusters found that two cars colliding at 50mph is not equivalent to one car hitting a brick wall at 100mph. It resembles one car hitting a brick wall at 50mph.
Think of it this way: the two cars (if they’re the same weight) create a virtual immovable object at the impact point.
“Brick wall” is doing a lot of work there - note that it’s not the same as hitting a stationary car at 50mph, that car would move. We rarely encounter actual immovable objects on or near the road, which is why a 50+50 head-on is more violent than a 50+0 collision into something softer.
It makes sense as well. If we assume each car has the same mass, and picture the collision from the side, it would appear as if each car was hitting an invisible brick wall that separated them. Or, picture hitting a stationary car while driving 100km/h (perhaps on some frictionless surface) - afterwards, both cars would be sliding at 50km/h.
“If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.”
As long-time grey-beard MB owner, and, honestly, it's not just them, the sheer amount of noise and distractions in modern cockpits is absurd now.
By this I mean, reversing sensors, slow-forward speed sensors, massive LCD screen (which may or may not be touchscreen) positioned at windscreen level, the right-hand "-ometer" that's configurable, a dial, a trackpad, a steering wheel with at least four buttons, and two 'joystick' things. And 3 instrument clusters on stalks. Heating buttons, fan, windscreen control, radio button, all down the bottom of the centre console where I have to take my eyes off the road.
It's a shit show.
My point? My current MB has never been so distracting to drive where I have to take my eyes off the road for a second to hit the demister button. Versus a car from the 1990s - no centre-LCD so the heater/demister buttons were in your peripheral vision. No touchscreen - regular buttons with tactile feed back that even had "braille like" raised paint so you could figure out where your hand was without taking your eye off the road. Don't even get me started on trying to use the radio or equaliser.
I hope, I really do, that autonomous driving works and reduces crashes, but I'm astonished there hasn't been a noticeable uptick in crashes based on just what I've written.
From the article, this is yet another button on the steering wheel. Probably because they've run out of dashboard space for all the other buttons. Auto-stop, car alarm off, assistance, sport mode, are at least 4 buttons I never use.
>Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems, and no construction zones...The system will only operate during daytime, in reasonably clear weather, without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning.
Those are some big caveats that mean that you won't be able to use this in most situations. It is basically only good for stop and go highway traffic which is a situation that other driver assist features handle pretty well.
If that is the only use case Mercedes feel their safety assurance can justify what does that say about other self driving cars for which their manufacturers will not accept liability?
Assuming that Mercedes Benz (and all other manufacturers at that) know their shit, which they do, it says more about the self-driving competition and self-driving tech in general thann it does about Mercedes' offering.
I'm not sure that I understand your point. Which party takes responsibility for an accident says nothing about the frequency of accidents or the kind of threat this car would pose to other drivers.
Of course it does (indirectly). Tesla for example can't take responsibility, since they know that their "full self drive" or "autopilot" systems are never reliable, in any driving circumstance.
What you're saying is like "the engineers that built this bridge never drive over it, but that doesn't mean it's shoddy" - technically correct, but almost certainly wrong in practice.
You are assuming the motivations behind these decisions are purely based on safety rather than a philosphical difference in approaches.
From a practical standpoint, liability needs to be all or nothing. You can't have a driver worrying about whether they are going 40mph or 41mph. You can't immedaitely give the driver liability if it starts to drizzle or the sun sets.
Mercedes is taking the approach that they are always responsibile. Other manufacturers are taking the approach that the driver is always responsible. The end result is that the Mercedes system is much more conservative in how it can be used. This says nothing about the quality of their technology in comparison to their competitors. It simply says they are focusing on the easiest problems first while their competitors are taking a more holistic approach trying to design a system that has more broad usability.
As everyone knows by now, literal full self driving (as in get in your car, tell it to take you to the other end of the country and wake you up when it gets there) is entirely out of reach to current technology, and will stay out of reach until we design new sensors and possibly general AI*.
So, the current goals must be to achieve something similar in certain well defined limited conditions, and with reliable automatic checking that you are still within those conditions - hopefully conditions that one is actually likely to encounter. Until we have that, letting self driving cars on public roads is a menace.
Current self driving cars are at best at the level of a driver going through their first driving lessons, and one with very bad eyesight at that. Having a human act as the driving instructor, theoretically prepared to step in whenever the AI makes a silly mistake, is not enough to make these cars as safe as the average (non-drunk, non-sleep-deprived) human driver.
What Mercedes seems to be doing is responsibly pushing the state of the art further. Having a car that is safer than a human driver without depending on your constant vigillance is a huge step forward. Obviously, this only works in certain conditions, but the car itself detects when those conditions are no longer met, and gives you quite ample warning to assume back control.
* Elon's shameless lies about having your Tesla act as a self driving taxi and generate a profit for you while you work in the coming years have well been put to rest.
The point is that if the designers are not even confident in saying "this works without a hitch under X and Y circumstances", allowing its use on public roads at all (and you choosing to use it) are bad ideas.
> I personally would rather have a system that I can actually use when I want even if that means I need to accept liability while using it.
It's all a trade-off. My accident-rate thus far is one serious accident in over 700000km of driving. My fender-bender rate is three FBs in over 700000km of driving.
My understanding of the Tesla system[1] is that it requires roughly one intervention every ~5000km of driving in order to avoid an accident. For me this is an unacceptably high risk, because not intervening in 4999km will definitely (100% certainty) mean that I will be in a poor position to react when the intervention is necessary.
Now, you might claim that the driver has to be alert while not in control for 4999km to avoid the accident on the 5000km mark, but if drivers were that good at being alert while not engaged with the act of driving, then the self-driving system is redundant anyway.
[1] I read the stats a long time ago, so maybe they've changed.
Yes, but you are missing the essential point of this move.
They are saying that they have enough confidence in the system that they will pay for anything that goes wrong. This means that they have run the calcs to work out how much its going to cost.
Tesla have basically gone: "fuck me its bad, lets just legal boilerplate ourselves out of the consequences. Oh and charge people to QA our shit"
From my point of view, the actual act of driving is not that difficult (after the first 50k miles or so). The issue is the mental effort required to continually pay attention to what's going on to drive safely.
Tesla's system still requires me to pay attention to what's happening to exactly the same degree as normal because I might need to intervene (and in fact makes it harder to be ready to do so). All it does is take away the (to me) trivial aspects of pressing a pedal and turning a steering wheel.
Whereas this system introduces a set of circumstances in which I don't need to drive at all. No need to pay attention at all. And it's the most tedious form of driving there is - stop start traffic on a motorway.
> And it's the most tedious form of driving there is - stop start traffic on a motorway.
As someone who has used autopilot in the circumstances you describe, I'd be shocked if you need to pay more attention during autopilot than the Mercedes system. Autopilot generally requires intervention in danger situations, which are incredibly rare in stop/start traffic.
It says that they’re a responsible company that isn’t comfortable playing fast and loose with your safety. Unlike some US companies that don’t come from a background of safety but a background of “move fast and break things” and a business model of regulatory arbitrage.
But this is quite a bad product in that respect. If this is all it takes, Tesla would implement the same restrictions and get the same fanfare, but alas they're not constantly aiming for "PR stunt" levels of driving.
You're saying that Tesla of all companies isn't aiming for PR stunts with their automated driving? Tesla, the company that calls their level 2 automation "Full Self Driving" isn't out for PR stunts? I would be hard-pressed to name many companies that seem more prone to PR stunts than Tesla.
Yes but it's (according to the article) the only system that takes on any legal responsibility and guarantees a fairly long takeover window within which Mercedes will still be at fault for an accident.
All other companies don't go that far and make absolutely no promises. Sometimes their marketing wink-wink-nudge-nudges you and implies that they do the same but in reality they don't.
If this is successful you will soon see customers and regulators requiring the same for all competitors.
> Yes but it's (according to the article) the only system that takes on any legal responsibility and guarantees a fairly long takeover window within which Mercedes will still be at fault for an accident.
I don't think it's that big of a deal but it's clearly well done from a PR/marketing standpoint.
Insurance/warranty is just an expense from a companies POV. You control it via a combination of
a) building a well working product
b) limiting use of that product
c) putting a high enough premium on it
__
a) is what all customers want. b) is what Mercedes is heavily leaning into right now, because looking at the restrictions it's pretty clear that they don't think they have accomplished a) to any satisfying degree.
I am sure they will be setting c) to where their insurance math says it has to be to be financially viable.
Fair enough. I definitely agree that autonomous driving has to be insured by the company providing the service and at least in so far it's a big step in the right direction.
However claiming they have beaten Tesla seems like a bit of a stretch given the circumstances.
>Tesla probably has the lead on average but can't (or won't) guarantee that their system is safe in a specific set of best case conditions.
Do people not see how much of a nightmare it would be if liability is constantly switching back and forth depending on the circumstances the self-driving system is being used under? The only practical approach is to either have the driver always be responsibile when the system is on or the manufacturer always be responsible when the system is on. The choice to use the latter approach means the system has to be limited to very narrow circumstances. That doesn't mean the system is necessarily safer than the competitors in those circumstances, it simply means that the companies are approaching the same problem from differenct angles.
You just don't know about the autonomous technology from Mercedes. Because they don't talk about. They don't produce blog post about every small step they do, like Waymo and the others.
The automotive industry is more like Apple. They don't talk and show off until its done. Like: Never over promise and under deliver.
In particular the automotive industry has been sued often enough to be careful what they say. I fully expect Tesla to be found at fault for some situation where they officially say the driver is in charge, but the courts decide marketing messages mislead the driver.
You must be joking. This is the industry that has annual travelling car shows where every manufacturer displays "concepts" that are never thereafter produced.
They very much have beaten Tesla, or does Tesla have a similar approval and infrastructure in place? Will Tesla take liability from you when the car crashes in Autopilot? They won’t, while Mercedes actually will and has that legally backed by the German government.
As the top comment said, it's only in extremely tight circumstances. Tesla Autopilot / FSD beta (the one that you can use if you have >98 safety score) will work anywhere your car can see lane lines and it'll try its best to work in rain/snow or at 1am with limited visibility.
> I don't think it's that big of a deal but it's clearly well done from a PR/marketing standpoint.
This is a really big deal. If you are required to instantly take over, you need to permanently pay attention to the current road situation, at which point the autopilot is really just a fancy cruise control. People still stop paying attention, of course, but that's actually a massive risk.
A longer takeover window actually allows you to do something useful, such as read or look at your phone, without taking this risk, since you will have time to adjust to the situation if necessary.
To ensure operation inside the limited legal responsibility, there are just two options:
a) The system would have to be allowed to disengage automatically when conditions change unfavourably, in which case you would still have to be alert, all of the time for when that happens
b) It would not be allowed to do that automatically and you are liable from the moment autopilot drives into an area that is exempt from its legal responsibility as laid out by the insurance coverage limitations
For example, take a look at the exemption of "construction sites": Either the car disengages and says "from here on our it's your job, not ours anymore" or it does not, and then in the case of an accident you are not covered by their limited legal responsibility. What the autopilot can definitely not do, is making the construction site disappear or guaranteeing that the car will never hit one after having been engaged.
c) The system needs to detect worsening conditions early either prompt you to take over with enough time to spare (or fail gracefully).
That's the big thing that Mercedes guarantees here: You'll have enough time to take over even if you're doing something else; if the system does fails to give you a warning in time and you crash, Mercedes takes the responsibility. In all other systems, once the autopilot prompts you to take over, you are responsible. With this system, once the autopilot prompts you to take over, Mercedes is still responsible for the next ten seconds, which should be more than enough time to take over in an emergency.
Oh well, we seem to have different opinions about whether a 10s-to-react-window in quickly moving car qualifies as having to be alert all the time. Fair enough.
There is not ever going to be a takeover window long enough to allow the driver to read a book at their leisure. That would require tens of seconds for context switching during which the traffic is going to be changing behaviour.
How will the car detect a construction zone it can’t see yet with enough time to hand over to an inattentive driver?
I look forward to seeing this system in operation. I have significant doubts about the feasibility of its operational claims.
It is as tiny a degree as between software 95% ready and 100% ready. Or a software development contract with or without the pesky word ‚guarantee‘ in it. At some point a few degrees make the difference between water and vapor.
It's a marketing parlor trick. They take legal responsibility for something that cannot happen and immediately drop to human control when things turn south, like all so called "Level 3" systems.
I'm also sure they will not take any responsibility if someone rear-ends you when the car stops in confusion on the highway.
Did you read the article? They guarantee a 10 seconds manual take over time and remain responsible in those 10 seconds. That's not the same as the instant dropping the ball that Tesla, Volvo, GM etc all do.
First, a software vendor accepting responsibility for the software's actions? Wow.
Second, they're confident of being able to predict accidents ten seconds in advance? That's up to 160m away and I think that's great, even if they limit the circumstances sharply and allow many false positives.
I don't think they're predicting exactly; I think they've decided that's what is reasonable to ask of a consumer, and they're building their Ts & Cs to fit. They'll then make the technology fit as best it can, but if they can't, it's their fault.
This is not "a software vendor accepting responsibility for the software's actions" this is a car, placed between human, unpredictable, drivers operating 2 tonne machines. Far from Photoshop working on your PC or an embedded system for your fridge.
No, they are confident that they can detect at least 10 seconds in advance if one of the many conditions required to operate the autopilot will be violated. Upcoming tunnel, construction, etc.
Right. And any accident falls into at least one of these three classes: Something they won't need to pay for (even via insurance premiums), something the software can avoid and lastly, most significantly, something for which the software can provide ten seconds' warning.
I don't find it remarkable that the software has many reasons to disengage. I find it remarkable that potential accidents >10s into the future are on the list of reasons, even in limited circumstances.
The first software I bought came with a warranty that covered nothing: It explicitly said that the software wasn't guaranteed to perform "any particular function". As I read that text, that vendor had the right to sell me three empty floppy disks. You've seen similar texts, right?
And here we have Mercedes guaranteeing considerable foresight in limited circumstances. No matter how limited the circumstances are, that's a giant leap.
I'd expand that to four classes of accidents. Four, something they /will/ need to pay for (both in money, as they're committing to, and in PR). Inevitably some accidents won't fall into your three "preferred" categories -- making a system like this successful is about managing the size of bucket four, not eliminating it entirely.
These two are interesting for comparing Daimler approach, systems used, and engineering philosophy. From the first presentation, Slide 9 is interesting as review of the different levels of automation.
From Slide 23: If you don't take over when requested, after an automated stop, car will unlock the doors call to your emergency response center.
"An Automated Driving System for the Highway - Daimler" [PDF]
"When the DRIVE PILOT is activated, the system continuously evaluates the route, traffic signs, and occurring traffic incidents. As a layperson it’s hard to imagine how sophisticated the hardware and software of the S-Class is in order to be ready for Level 3. Even the “normal” latest-generation
Driving Assistance Package has the following:
• A stereo multi-purpose camera behind the windshield.
• A long-range radar in the radiator grille.
• Four multi-mode radars (one each on the right-hand and left-hand sides at the front and rear bumpers).
The optional parking package additionally includes:
• A 360°-Camera consisting of four cameras in the right-hand and left-hand exterior mirrors as well as in the radiator grille and at the trunk.
• Twelve ultrasonic sensors (six each at the front and rear bumpers).
"For the DRIVE PILOT, many additional components are needed besides the sensors of the Driving Assistance Package. The long-range radar in the radiator grille is combined
with a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) system. Whereas radar uses radio waves, LiDAR employs pulses of infrared light in order to optically determine an object’s
speed and distance and to create a highly precise map of the vehicle’s surroundings. This combines the strengths of both technologies: LiDAR sensors operate with higher precision,
while radar is advantageous in bad weather, for example."
"The rear window is equipped with a rear multi-purpose camera that scans the area behind the vehicle. In combination with additional microphones, this device can, among other things, detect the flashing lights and special signals of emergency vehicles. The cameras in the driver’s display and MBUX Interior Assist are always directed at the
driver so that they can determine if he or she falls asleep, turns around for too long, leaves the driver’s seat, or is unable to retake control of driving for other reasons."
If I can read a book then how will I know if we come to a construction zone? They cant take such conditional responsibility, it will lead to bad things.
The fundamental problem is that in order for the company to accept legal responsibility the self driving system must follow all traffic laws, and there is no way consumers will accept a car that won't go faster than the speed limit in no traffic situation.
I wonder if there will be a long term unintended consequence where as self driving progresses into more difficult use cases people will have less overall experience and will struggle when they have to take over for more difficult scenarios like heavy rain or snow?
It's already happening with existing functionality. I know several younger drivers that struggle with parking without all the cameras and auto-park features.
It's weird how to this day Tesla Autopilot can only really be semi-reliably trusted in exactly the same situations this works
... but because Tesla has the reality distortion field in full effect you never hear these complaints about their solution.
Driving up sidewalks, killing people by slamming into stationary objects, people trying to sleep in your glorified ADAS guided car, all the cost of being able to claim you work in more situations.
Highway traffic is the one thing I would trust a self driving car with right now, and that's how most of the time is spent on long trips. If can legally watch a movie or browse the web while my car is simply following the line (including traffic jams), then I'd be perfectly happy. Just alert me 5 minutes before the exit or intersection and let me handle that.
I like this because these restrictions paint a very realistic picture of the current state of the art of autonomous vehicles. Any claims beyond these are likely just marketing fluff (at this point in time).
Huge caveats for the initial rollout. Over here, the speed limit for divided highways with no traffic control systems is 80km/h at a minimum. I guess you need to start somewhere though, even if that is 'traffic jams on highways'.
It’s not about insurance, it’s about the definition of level 3 automation. It requires the vehicle to have very high confidence that it can drive without mistakes, because a human is not monitoring the driving.
Level 2 systems can often work in more conditions because they have a lower requirement for reliability. They are permitted to make mistakes without realizing it, because the human driver is required to monitor and override the system.
> Those are some big caveats that mean that you won't be able to use this in most situations
It still seems like we need to adapt the roads to autonomous vehicles and not the other way around. In the UK, and there's no indication of it whatsoever at the moment, I hope we never end up with the US's crazy car-centric town streets where as a pedestrian you can only cross at crossings, and if you get hit by 2 tons of steel, it's your fault.
I saw the mention of 10 seconds reaction window but I don't think that's universal. As in my example, if there's an orange light blinking ahead and car is driving 60km/h it's impossible for the car to give the driver 10 seconds to take over.
> Don't all highways in Germany have minimum speed of 70 km/h?
No. The only legal limit is that the vehicle has to be type-licensed for going more than 60 km/h, which an S-class clearly is. Actual minimum speed requirements are rare.
Nevertheless this is for now clearly primarily useful as an assistant for being stuck in bad traffic, and you can get ticketed for going slow enough to hinder traffic flow without a good reason, and if you can argue a good reason depends. An upgrade to 80 so you can stick it behind a truck in the right lane would make it a lot more practical.
That’s the trade-off between level of responsibility and capability at our current level of technological progress. Level 2 systems operate in much broader conditions but have high enough rates of failure that a driver must be attentive at all times. The jump to level 3 is mostly about responsibility. That higher level of responsibility means that the car is not going to drive itself unless it’s absolutely sure it can do it by itself.
Whatever Mercedes says may not be what the law says. It may not be possible for them to take the liability from you. It may be criminal negligence or something else to not operate a car on a road in a state that says you have to.
Maybe they can agree to pay any civil liability you'd have, but taking a nap after you turn a car on may open you to criminal liability that Mercedes can't intervene in.
If a knife salesman tells me his knives can't hurt people, and signs a contract saying he'll assume all liability, I am nevertheless liable when I stab someone with it.
The judge will say you damn well should've known you couldn't go to sleep in a car you're operating, and are in fact culpable for your negligence.
"But Mercedes said!"
"If Mercedes told you to jump (or drive) off a bridge..."
It is the same as with any product on the market. The producing company is liable, if the product causes harm when used and it is the products fault that the harm was caused. For example if lets say a TV blows up during normal usage. This is fist of all liability for damages. A criminal charge only happens if it can be shown, that there was any active wrongdoing leading to the damage. Like neglecting usual engineering practices, or even knowingly selling a defective product.
Not a lawyer, but I think that if you don’t intend for the crash to happen, and don’t act negligently you’re not criminally liable. If the automated process is designed not to require attention of the operator, it should not be considered negligent not to pay attention to it.
Maybe a similar case is how business jets that used to always require two pilots, even tiny ones like the Learjet 23. Flying one of them alone might not only be against the regulations, but even be criminally negligent if you crash and kill someone. But newer business jets have more automation and are designed for single pilot operation, so operating it alone would not be negligent.
> Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages
This is a step in the right direction - but they although they may take responsibility for any financial penalty or civil liability - but can't control what a criminal court decides.
Neat, but the article seems a little rosy-eyed. eg:
...the software uses microphones and cameras to detect emergency lights and sirens far enough in advance to issue the full 10-second warning before manual takeover.
That doesn't help when the lights and sirens are switched on a few dozen cars away and reach you in 6 seconds.
You are not supposed to be asleep at the wheel with any of these "autopilots", nor are you supposed to be reading books or looking at your phone. What are you doing that you can't take back control of your wheel in less than a few seconds ?
Article clearly says that "In Germany, drivers can legally use their cellphones while Drive Pilot is engaged, a first for semi-autonomous systems". However, you can't go to sleep.
If your car is yelling at you to grab the wheel, I'm sure you can take two seconds to put your phone in your pocket. With one hand even, so the other can go to your wheel, and your feet are still nice and snug on the pedals, ready to brake should you need to.
I think the crucial thing here is, in this case if you don't do any of that, Mercedes will still take responsibility for a crash until the ten seconds is up.
Therefore they need to be very confident in that ten second rule, and naturally we look for cases where it might not work out well.
Hmm I know it's not the same but I see a lot of people fall asleep on public transit only to be jolted awake, look around confused for a few seconds and then bolt for the doors because they are realizing they're about to miss their stop. I think it's great to say "you can't go to sleep" but I have a feeling people will fall asleep anyways, especially commuting to and from work. Based on the disoriented, panicked, suddenly awake people I see on public transit, I think the 10 second warning could scare somebody awake, have them panic and cause an accident.
Emergency vehicles don't and can't expect full compliance and open road 6 seconds after they turn on their lights and sirens, that would be irrational. It takes time to move out of the way, especially in the sort of traffic this is designed for (low-speed stop-and-go highways).
> On certain highways, below 40 mph, a Drive Pilot-equipped S-Class or EQS will take control of the car's speed, steering, and brakes to move you along in traffic.
Where can one locate these specific highways that offer guaranteed legal responsibility? I seemed to have missed it in the article.
Self-driving cars will be popularized by people not having to pay (increasingly expensive) accident insurance. Once human driving becomes prohibitively expensive, it'll be reserved for the 'elite' who get a kick out of driving a car themselves.
I never understood why others are not required to do so. Even when you stand outside your Tesla and "summon" it to you and it drives into something; you're somehow legally the driver?
If you were controlling the car as you would an RC car then sure. Considering that you are not in the control of the car I don't see why you should have any responsibility.
> So you are in control of the car. Not the trajectory, but you control its velocity.
So you are not in full control of the car then. If a car decides to go in reverse when instead it should go forward and proceeds to hit a pedestrian that was tying his shoelaces behind it. Can you explain how that was an action of a person pressing a button that has no control over the trajectory of a vehicle and why we should consider them somehow responsible for that action (of backing up) instead of the car manufacturer?
> Easy: You shouldn't have continued pressing the button with people in danger of getting anywhere near the thing while it's in motion.
What is the point of the feature if I have to come to the car and inspect that there are no blockages around it? Should I then walk to the place from which I intended to use the feature and use it or should I maybe just enter the car seeing that I am expected to circle the car before using the feature?
Driving from the back of a mostly empty Cosco in the middle of the workday is pretty much the ideal use case, since you can easily spot the car and keep track of what is surrounding it as it comes to you. The app specifically asks you to make sure you have line of sight of the vehicle, and will not work if it thinks you're too far.
I don't know, maybe there isn't any point in it. I don't own a Tesla, and have never used or seen this feature.
The rest of society is under no obligation to scale its expectations of your liability in proportion to you getting a perceived return on investment out of your expensive toy.
I.e. maybe you should always walk up to and around the car before using the feature in a public parking lot, and only make use of it to e.g. have the car back out of your own garage, provided that you have a clear view of your driveway being unobstructed.
I don't see how that makes me "in control" of the car; I can perhaps be lucky and manage to stop it if I see some obvious a mistake coming, but you sort of trust it to "miss" things as well if you use that feature.
It may not really be all that different between Tesla and Mercedes. The conditions that Mercedes is releasing this under sound like they will give them plenty of room to say "not covered" and need lawyers involved. Similarly, if you're using Tesla's summon feature and it drives into something, you can opt to get lawyers involved. The main difference is what these companies are telling you upfront; Mercedes seems to be saying something to the effect of "don't worry," and Tesla is telling you that you must pay attention.
The difference is that Mercedes will have to pay your relatives while Tesla will say "after 2 hours on autopilot the driver wasn't able to take over in a split second"
Neither company really cares about your life and wellbeing, but one is also risking their own money and brand image. I usually trust companies to be good at judging financial consequences
Fair enough, I was just irked by this sentence in the article and had to quip. Overall I'm still ambivalent on automated driving, feeling conflicted by claims that it is safer "on average" but simultaneously painfully aware of the shortcomings of machine learning, and susceptibility to attacks.
This is an important step. For the first time there is full self driving where the driver is no longer require to pay attention to what the car is doing. However, this is not a generic solution. This system is limited to a very narrow set of conditions. Specifically, to premapped highways with a divider between directions, no crossings, just on- and off ramps. On top of that, at very low speed, so in normal traffic you unfortunately cannot use it either.
So how does this compare to Teslas FSD (not Autopilot, which really is only an assistant)? The answer is: not much at all. The Mercedes system has limited the conditions to a point, where it basically just has to do collision avoidance with traffic with predictable behavior. It is limited to selected roads. You don't need much "AI" here and for this task, LIDAR excels in the specified weather conditions.
The Tesla FSD system on the other side aims to be a generic driving AI. It has no limitations about on which roads it operates, it uses maps only for navigation to the destination. But the driving operation is done solely by the evaluation of camera footage. Which already works in many more environmental conditions than the Mercedes system.
These systems approach the goal from entirely two directions. The Tesla system aims to be a complete solution, but certainly is not able to do that unobserved in the current state. It is doing reasonably well at that, but the literally billion dollar question is, can it ever get so reliable, that the driver can completely hand over to car ever? On the other side Mercedes has full autonomy, but they achieved that in a very limited and controlled environment - it remains to be seen how much they can extend that.
> The Tesla FSD system on the other side aims to be a generic driving AI. ... can it ever get so reliable, that the driver can completely hand over to car ever?
Using the current machine learning algorithms? Not likely. Imagine releasing a new airplane and telling the pilot - "this airplane flies well in 99% of scenarios, but 1% of the time it refuses to respond to pilot commands and kills everyone on board. We don't know why it happens but we'll keep training the model". That's the state we're currently at with "AI"; as someone put it, it's alchemy. If it works, we don't know why. If it doesn't, we don't know why - but we tune the parameters until it seems to work. We cannot prove it will work for every possible input. ... Not exactly a scientific approach by any means. Such self-driving cars might be accepted in USA but I imagine they'd quickly get banned in Europe after a few random fatalities.
In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
1) Autosteer and active safety features are not "autopilot", its adaptive cruise control.
2) if they think something bad is about to happen, it beeps and hands over control, thus its the drivers fault, as the system wasn't engaged at the time of the crash
> Autosteer + active safety features is exactly what autopilot is.
If you ask a normal person on the street what "autopilot" means in a car, you'll get a range of answers. But the consistent opinion is that autopilot means that you don't need to concentrate. Most will say that its automatic driving, and will drive for you.
But autosteer requires concentration. Its just sparkling lane assist.
> it's different to FSD - yes.
Which is the point. Its marketing fluff. Autopilot isn't really that, its adaptive cruise control with lane assist. Thats the thing that rankles. All of this stupidity, injury, and noise comes from a marketing decision. One designed to cover up that the CEO over promised and wildly under delivered _yet again_.
SAE is good for classification but not for evaluating performance. By definition autosteer isn't "driving", but it does effectively drive for you at the level you'd expect, and it can take you 300 miles on a highway without disengagements and the $12k package can even overtake cars slower than you.
That's my point. Mercedes might be able to operate unsupervised on a some predefined map of highways while under a set of conditions and at a certain speed, but that doesn't mean it's a good product that solves real problems if it can't take over driving unsupervised on a regular road trip where you're driving 70+mph.
"NHTSA's Flawed Autopilot Safety Study Unmasked (2019) - The safety regulator's claim that Autopilot reduces crashes by 40% was based on flawed data and analysis, which it attempted to keep secret.":
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-...
1. NHTSA has reiterated that its data came from Tesla, and has not been verified by an independent party (as it noted in a footnote in the report).
2. Second, it says its investigators did not consider whether the driver was using Autopilot at the time of each crash. (Reminder: Drivers are only supposed to use Autopilot in very specific contexts.)
3. And third, airbag deployments are an inexact proxy for crashes.
... which all sound like really flimsy reasons to conclude "doesn't stack up." A more honest summary based on those would be something like "hasn't been verified by a 3rd party yet."
It's incredible how openly the media makes things up about Tesla, likely just to generate page impressions.
The primary issue is that the data doesn't adjust for road classification in any way. Highway driving, where autopilot is used, has considerably fewer crashes per mile than city driving. Tesla compared Autopilot's rates against all driving rather than just highway driving which would be the relevant metric.
That adjustment alone almost completely eliminates any safety advantage of Autopilot before you get into any of the other adjustments like age.
Tesla’s data shows autopilot is safer (crashes less) than not on autopilot. The only question mark I’ve seen in this discussion is on NHTSAs data regarding Tesla.
Could you explain the flaw in Tesla data? How is crashes/mile not a good proxy for safety?
>In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot
But this is not FSD , is a combo of human + some driver assistance, come back when Elon discloses how many times the human was forced to intervene to prevent a crash.
I am wondering why Tesla fans think this stats are proving that so called FSD is safe , don't you understand stats? did PR tricked you,? this proves that soem assistant like one keeping safe distance between cars is safer, make all the data public and let us compute the real stats please.
> In December 2015, Musk predicted "complete autonomy" by 2018. At the end of 2016, Tesla expected to demonstrate full autonomy by the end of 2017, and in April 2017, Musk predicted that in around two years, drivers would be able to sleep in their vehicle while it drives itself. In 2018 Tesla revised the date to demonstrate full autonomy to be by the end of 2019. In February 2019, Musk stated that Tesla's FSD capability would be "feature complete" by the end of 2019. In January 2020, Musk claimed the FSD software would be "feature complete" by the end of 2020, adding that feature complete "doesn't mean that features are working well". In August 2020, Musk stated that 200 software engineers, 100 hardware engineers and 500 "labelers" were working on Autopilot and FSD. In early 2021, Musk stated that Tesla would provide SAE Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021 and that Tesla plans to release a monthly subscription package for FSD in 2021. An email conversation between Tesla and the California Department of Motor Vehicles retrieved via a Freedom of Information Act request by PlainSite contradicts Musk's forward-looking statement.
(Also, incidentally, Musk's decision to use cameras instead of LIDAR – for depth perception etc – is insane and is widely regarded as such. He's doubled down on saying LIDAR is rubbish, since the entire industry has bet on it, and presumably Tesla is too far into the woods to reverse.)
Catchy, but not a particularly good criticism. Few people believe that using cameras for this is impossible, only that it makes the problem so much more difficult that it's insane to think that that's the way to go if your goal is to be a leader in self driving.
The big difference is that traditional automakers are almost entirely supplier-innovation-driven and their competitive advantage basically lies in the integration of these supplied parts and solutions. If there are problems with, for example, the Drive Pilot, they will likely blame the supplier of the system and force them to take responsibility/cost.
There are almost no software developers working at the traditional automakers, they are working with consulting firms and software suppliers.
Volkswagen is the first traditional automaker showing large investments in software with CARIAD [1], however, according to employee reviews, it‘s very poorly managed (by people who have never worked in software).
It was/is pretty clear that german car makers are going to supersede the cult of Tesla. Better engineering, history, support, network, trust and an actual taste for design. Bonus: Leadership teams that don't post gibberish about Crypto.
Electrek and the writer of that article are heavily biased towards tesla. Also, those are inexperienced students, not established engineers. Also, that article claims that elon is "the world's most brilliant engineer", but elon isn't even an engineer and has never engineered anything.
So do you just go around making up stuff so it fits your world view?
Elon is the chief designer and chief engineer at SpaceX. If you watch the video referenced in this article and are not convinced that Elon does engineering, then I don’t know what to tell you.
He hasn't designed or engineered anything. He doesn't have an engineering degree. Giving yourself a title of engineer at your own company doesn't make you an engineer automatically.
You're just completely wrong, and judging by your comment history, you have a huge bias against Elon Musk and Tesla so trying to have a real discussion with you on this subject is impossible.
It's a bold move that signals confidence in the own system. If it works out others will probably soon follow. In 10 years cars probably drive fully autonomous.
Is it stock market price, followers on Twitter, or another criteria?
My claim is that if you narrow it down to actual autonomous driving; lidar + camera + a big chip will beat camera + a very big chip for the foreseeable future.
What's your definition of the lead? To me, this is huge. Tesla has never been willing to take responsibility for any crashes, instead blamining the driver.
All these fancy self drive cars I can't afford on a UK Principle Dev's salary so it's interesting but I'm not sure how mass market these things are or will ever be.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 337 ms ] threadI imagine airplane manufacturers have long been on the hook if their autopilot engages Kill All Humans mode, despite the best efforts of Boeing's lawyers to blame some of the humans their software killed.
From the article:
"...Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems, and no construction zones. Eligible roads must be mapped by Mercedes for Drive Pilot use (similar to GM SuperCruise); the automaker has already mapped every such highway in Germany, and most of those in Nevada and California. The system will only operate during daytime, in reasonably clear weather, without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning. And no, you can't close your eyes or go to sleep while it operates..."
From the article:
"[...] Unlike all currently available driver-assist systems, Drive Pilot is designed to give drivers a 10-second warning before switching off; engineers had to make sure that, in every situation, the system would safely and faultlessly hand over control. [...]"
No, technically whether they or liable or not reverts to normal principles of product liability, rather than their special acceptance of liability.
But manufacturers liability for harms caused by their products, while varying in detail from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, tend to be pretty broad in most of the West (incl. the US, despite it's otherwise weak consumer laws.)
As the default speed limit for such a highway would presumably be 65 mph (and traffic usually much faster), anywhere with such lowered speeds would presumably have special circumstances that would probably make it unsuitable.
The guaranteed 10 second handoff is impressive, however.
Airplane autopilots are so simple they they can be implemented with entirely analog circuits. They are simple feedback control loops that operate off a single scalar variable in each axis.
There is ample time for the pilot to correct any “mistakes” the autopilot makes.
There is no expectation that the autopilot operates independently of the pilot’s supervision and judgement.
In terms of decision-making and autonomy and liability - an airplane autopilot is really analogous to cruise control in a car, nothing more. It operates the flight controls to maintain simple parameters chosen by the pilot, and that’s all.
Comparisons of the systems is irrelevant to the very simple point I made - putting your money where your mouth is garners trust.
As for your claim about autopilot being simple, and humans having ample time to correct its mistakes, well, two 737 MAXs and one Air France flight are very straightforward counterarguments.
My biggest regret about getting it wrong is that it gives pedants something to fixate on and split hairs about, in lieu of engaging with the actual point.
For reference: https://www.398th.org/Research/B17_AFCE.html
I think they discovered that it was the pilots who were accidentally leaning on the that switch when getting up for a coffee break.
Terrible decision to put it right next to an armrest...
> “On certain highways, below 40 mph”
It's good for manufacturers to err on on the side of limited capabilities to keep things safer, but we don't want them to err too far in that direction. And if they're providing ongoing insurance with no revenue, that's an incentive to be overly restrictive.
Only legally speaking. If the car drives me into an incoming truck, it still is very much my problem.
So currently it is only enabled for very clear situations, driving under 40 mp/h(60 kmh) in trafic jams on a motorway (where there usually is a physical separation to the other lane, except in roadbuilding situations, but I would guess, that the autopilot will be disabled then).
So it should be quite safe. Otherwise they would not accept the risk. German car makers are very conservative.
Edit: correct speedlimit
I hope/think they considered a pointy metal, like it sometimes is on back of trailors in front of you, stabbing through the windshield for example?
It’s still my problem if I’m inside the car whilst it crashes.
“Brick wall” is doing a lot of work there - note that it’s not the same as hitting a stationary car at 50mph, that car would move. We rarely encounter actual immovable objects on or near the road, which is why a 50+50 head-on is more violent than a 50+0 collision into something softer.
https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck
As long-time grey-beard MB owner, and, honestly, it's not just them, the sheer amount of noise and distractions in modern cockpits is absurd now.
By this I mean, reversing sensors, slow-forward speed sensors, massive LCD screen (which may or may not be touchscreen) positioned at windscreen level, the right-hand "-ometer" that's configurable, a dial, a trackpad, a steering wheel with at least four buttons, and two 'joystick' things. And 3 instrument clusters on stalks. Heating buttons, fan, windscreen control, radio button, all down the bottom of the centre console where I have to take my eyes off the road.
It's a shit show.
My point? My current MB has never been so distracting to drive where I have to take my eyes off the road for a second to hit the demister button. Versus a car from the 1990s - no centre-LCD so the heater/demister buttons were in your peripheral vision. No touchscreen - regular buttons with tactile feed back that even had "braille like" raised paint so you could figure out where your hand was without taking your eye off the road. Don't even get me started on trying to use the radio or equaliser.
I hope, I really do, that autonomous driving works and reduces crashes, but I'm astonished there hasn't been a noticeable uptick in crashes based on just what I've written.
From the article, this is yet another button on the steering wheel. Probably because they've run out of dashboard space for all the other buttons. Auto-stop, car alarm off, assistance, sport mode, are at least 4 buttons I never use.
Where's the Jony Ive for car cockpits?
That's the single touchscreen world of the Model 3 and Y :)
Those are some big caveats that mean that you won't be able to use this in most situations. It is basically only good for stop and go highway traffic which is a situation that other driver assist features handle pretty well.
What you're saying is like "the engineers that built this bridge never drive over it, but that doesn't mean it's shoddy" - technically correct, but almost certainly wrong in practice.
From a practical standpoint, liability needs to be all or nothing. You can't have a driver worrying about whether they are going 40mph or 41mph. You can't immedaitely give the driver liability if it starts to drizzle or the sun sets.
Mercedes is taking the approach that they are always responsibile. Other manufacturers are taking the approach that the driver is always responsible. The end result is that the Mercedes system is much more conservative in how it can be used. This says nothing about the quality of their technology in comparison to their competitors. It simply says they are focusing on the easiest problems first while their competitors are taking a more holistic approach trying to design a system that has more broad usability.
So, the current goals must be to achieve something similar in certain well defined limited conditions, and with reliable automatic checking that you are still within those conditions - hopefully conditions that one is actually likely to encounter. Until we have that, letting self driving cars on public roads is a menace.
Current self driving cars are at best at the level of a driver going through their first driving lessons, and one with very bad eyesight at that. Having a human act as the driving instructor, theoretically prepared to step in whenever the AI makes a silly mistake, is not enough to make these cars as safe as the average (non-drunk, non-sleep-deprived) human driver.
What Mercedes seems to be doing is responsibly pushing the state of the art further. Having a car that is safer than a human driver without depending on your constant vigillance is a huge step forward. Obviously, this only works in certain conditions, but the car itself detects when those conditions are no longer met, and gives you quite ample warning to assume back control.
* Elon's shameless lies about having your Tesla act as a self driving taxi and generate a profit for you while you work in the coming years have well been put to rest.
It's all a trade-off. My accident-rate thus far is one serious accident in over 700000km of driving. My fender-bender rate is three FBs in over 700000km of driving.
My understanding of the Tesla system[1] is that it requires roughly one intervention every ~5000km of driving in order to avoid an accident. For me this is an unacceptably high risk, because not intervening in 4999km will definitely (100% certainty) mean that I will be in a poor position to react when the intervention is necessary.
Now, you might claim that the driver has to be alert while not in control for 4999km to avoid the accident on the 5000km mark, but if drivers were that good at being alert while not engaged with the act of driving, then the self-driving system is redundant anyway.
[1] I read the stats a long time ago, so maybe they've changed.
It reminds me of this other excellent discussion about taking risks the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30264760
They are saying that they have enough confidence in the system that they will pay for anything that goes wrong. This means that they have run the calcs to work out how much its going to cost.
Tesla have basically gone: "fuck me its bad, lets just legal boilerplate ourselves out of the consequences. Oh and charge people to QA our shit"
Tesla's system still requires me to pay attention to what's happening to exactly the same degree as normal because I might need to intervene (and in fact makes it harder to be ready to do so). All it does is take away the (to me) trivial aspects of pressing a pedal and turning a steering wheel.
Whereas this system introduces a set of circumstances in which I don't need to drive at all. No need to pay attention at all. And it's the most tedious form of driving there is - stop start traffic on a motorway.
As someone who has used autopilot in the circumstances you describe, I'd be shocked if you need to pay more attention during autopilot than the Mercedes system. Autopilot generally requires intervention in danger situations, which are incredibly rare in stop/start traffic.
All other companies don't go that far and make absolutely no promises. Sometimes their marketing wink-wink-nudge-nudges you and implies that they do the same but in reality they don't.
If this is successful you will soon see customers and regulators requiring the same for all competitors.
I don't think it's that big of a deal but it's clearly well done from a PR/marketing standpoint.
Insurance/warranty is just an expense from a companies POV. You control it via a combination of
a) building a well working product
b) limiting use of that product
c) putting a high enough premium on it
__
a) is what all customers want. b) is what Mercedes is heavily leaning into right now, because looking at the restrictions it's pretty clear that they don't think they have accomplished a) to any satisfying degree.
I am sure they will be setting c) to where their insurance math says it has to be to be financially viable.
Regulators also love b) and now that there is precedence we should see the next step by some of the a) companies.
If their product is better they should be able to easily match or exceed Mercedes (and I think they will. Either voluntarily or by law).
To me this is a really exciting step along the way to autonomous vehicles.
However claiming they have beaten Tesla seems like a bit of a stretch given the circumstances.
Tesla probably has the lead on average but can't (or won't) guarantee that their system is safe in a specific set of best case conditions.
It's a different approach if you ask me.
Do people not see how much of a nightmare it would be if liability is constantly switching back and forth depending on the circumstances the self-driving system is being used under? The only practical approach is to either have the driver always be responsibile when the system is on or the manufacturer always be responsible when the system is on. The choice to use the latter approach means the system has to be limited to very narrow circumstances. That doesn't mean the system is necessarily safer than the competitors in those circumstances, it simply means that the companies are approaching the same problem from differenct angles.
The automotive industry is more like Apple. They don't talk and show off until its done. Like: Never over promise and under deliver.
I am still waiting for the promised full autonomous cross-country trip from East to West. I think it was promised for 2019.
While Mercedes had a full autonomous trip including small town traffic and several round-abouts.
Mercedes just applies higher standards on what they deploy on average Joe.
https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI / https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/s7vea9/fsd_bei...
Although his earlier claims in 2014 / 2015 were met, as autopilot works reasonably well on roads and highways. The claim for LA->NY was 2016[1]
1: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-autonomous-tesla-d...
This is a really big deal. If you are required to instantly take over, you need to permanently pay attention to the current road situation, at which point the autopilot is really just a fancy cruise control. People still stop paying attention, of course, but that's actually a massive risk.
A longer takeover window actually allows you to do something useful, such as read or look at your phone, without taking this risk, since you will have time to adjust to the situation if necessary.
a) The system would have to be allowed to disengage automatically when conditions change unfavourably, in which case you would still have to be alert, all of the time for when that happens
b) It would not be allowed to do that automatically and you are liable from the moment autopilot drives into an area that is exempt from its legal responsibility as laid out by the insurance coverage limitations
For example, take a look at the exemption of "construction sites": Either the car disengages and says "from here on our it's your job, not ours anymore" or it does not, and then in the case of an accident you are not covered by their limited legal responsibility. What the autopilot can definitely not do, is making the construction site disappear or guaranteeing that the car will never hit one after having been engaged.
c) The system needs to detect worsening conditions early either prompt you to take over with enough time to spare (or fail gracefully).
That's the big thing that Mercedes guarantees here: You'll have enough time to take over even if you're doing something else; if the system does fails to give you a warning in time and you crash, Mercedes takes the responsibility. In all other systems, once the autopilot prompts you to take over, you are responsible. With this system, once the autopilot prompts you to take over, Mercedes is still responsible for the next ten seconds, which should be more than enough time to take over in an emergency.
How will the car detect a construction zone it can’t see yet with enough time to hand over to an inattentive driver?
I look forward to seeing this system in operation. I have significant doubts about the feasibility of its operational claims.
There's a reason for that and it's because of a lack of confidence in the technology.
If this is true why don't all of companies do it?
I'm also sure they will not take any responsibility if someone rear-ends you when the car stops in confusion on the highway.
Yes they do. That's the point of their announcement and the reason why they only allow it under very specific and favourable conditions
First, a software vendor accepting responsibility for the software's actions? Wow.
Second, they're confident of being able to predict accidents ten seconds in advance? That's up to 160m away and I think that's great, even if they limit the circumstances sharply and allow many false positives.
I don't find it remarkable that the software has many reasons to disengage. I find it remarkable that potential accidents >10s into the future are on the list of reasons, even in limited circumstances.
The first software I bought came with a warranty that covered nothing: It explicitly said that the software wasn't guaranteed to perform "any particular function". As I read that text, that vendor had the right to sell me three empty floppy disks. You've seen similar texts, right?
And here we have Mercedes guaranteeing considerable foresight in limited circumstances. No matter how limited the circumstances are, that's a giant leap.
From Slide 23: If you don't take over when requested, after an automated stop, car will unlock the doors call to your emergency response center.
"An Automated Driving System for the Highway - Daimler" [PDF]
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2...
"A Joint Approach to Automated Driving Systems - Daimler" [PDF]
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/v...
Edit:
"The technical requirements"
"When the DRIVE PILOT is activated, the system continuously evaluates the route, traffic signs, and occurring traffic incidents. As a layperson it’s hard to imagine how sophisticated the hardware and software of the S-Class is in order to be ready for Level 3. Even the “normal” latest-generation Driving Assistance Package has the following:
• A stereo multi-purpose camera behind the windshield.
• A long-range radar in the radiator grille.
• Four multi-mode radars (one each on the right-hand and left-hand sides at the front and rear bumpers).
The optional parking package additionally includes:
• A 360°-Camera consisting of four cameras in the right-hand and left-hand exterior mirrors as well as in the radiator grille and at the trunk.
• Twelve ultrasonic sensors (six each at the front and rear bumpers).
"For the DRIVE PILOT, many additional components are needed besides the sensors of the Driving Assistance Package. The long-range radar in the radiator grille is combined with a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) system. Whereas radar uses radio waves, LiDAR employs pulses of infrared light in order to optically determine an object’s speed and distance and to create a highly precise map of the vehicle’s surroundings. This combines the strengths of both technologies: LiDAR sensors operate with higher precision, while radar is advantageous in bad weather, for example."
"The rear window is equipped with a rear multi-purpose camera that scans the area behind the vehicle. In combination with additional microphones, this device can, among other things, detect the flashing lights and special signals of emergency vehicles. The cameras in the driver’s display and MBUX Interior Assist are always directed at the driver so that they can determine if he or she falls asleep, turns around for too long, leaves the driver’s seat, or is unable to retake control of driving for other reasons."
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/magazine/technology-innovati...
The company is now officially called Mercedes-Benz as of recently, BTW.
The Daimler brand is now with Daimler Trucks, following a split.
... but because Tesla has the reality distortion field in full effect you never hear these complaints about their solution.
Driving up sidewalks, killing people by slamming into stationary objects, people trying to sleep in your glorified ADAS guided car, all the cost of being able to claim you work in more situations.
I mean if you commute regularly in a major metropolitan area that could easily be 90% of your driving.
Level 2 systems can often work in more conditions because they have a lower requirement for reliability. They are permitted to make mistakes without realizing it, because the human driver is required to monitor and override the system.
Going below 60km/h on the Autobahn... This seems to only be useful for the narrow use case of very bad traffic.
It still seems like we need to adapt the roads to autonomous vehicles and not the other way around. In the UK, and there's no indication of it whatsoever at the moment, I hope we never end up with the US's crazy car-centric town streets where as a pedestrian you can only cross at crossings, and if you get hit by 2 tons of steel, it's your fault.
Mercedes will accept legal responsibility only while DP is engaged so driver still has to pay attention and react(so called manual take-over).
DP max speed is 60km/h or 17m/s. System is likely to detect and issue under 100m away so driver has less than 5s to take over and sort it out.
In Tesla you have to have hands on wheel all the time.
Don't all highways in Germany have minimum speed of 70 km/h? So basically there's no road where Drive Pilot can be used?
No. The only legal limit is that the vehicle has to be type-licensed for going more than 60 km/h, which an S-class clearly is. Actual minimum speed requirements are rare.
Nevertheless this is for now clearly primarily useful as an assistant for being stuck in bad traffic, and you can get ticketed for going slow enough to hinder traffic flow without a good reason, and if you can argue a good reason depends. An upgrade to 80 so you can stick it behind a truck in the right lane would make it a lot more practical.
Nobody likes driving in that, a free highway can actually be fun, but as soon as the traffic gets dense it becomes the opposite and quite high stress.
Maybe they can agree to pay any civil liability you'd have, but taking a nap after you turn a car on may open you to criminal liability that Mercedes can't intervene in.
If a knife salesman tells me his knives can't hurt people, and signs a contract saying he'll assume all liability, I am nevertheless liable when I stab someone with it.
The judge will say you damn well should've known you couldn't go to sleep in a car you're operating, and are in fact culpable for your negligence.
"But Mercedes said!"
"If Mercedes told you to jump (or drive) off a bridge..."
At some point a judge will decide.
Maybe a similar case is how business jets that used to always require two pilots, even tiny ones like the Learjet 23. Flying one of them alone might not only be against the regulations, but even be criminally negligent if you crash and kill someone. But newer business jets have more automation and are designed for single pilot operation, so operating it alone would not be negligent.
This is a step in the right direction - but they although they may take responsibility for any financial penalty or civil liability - but can't control what a criminal court decides.
...the software uses microphones and cameras to detect emergency lights and sirens far enough in advance to issue the full 10-second warning before manual takeover.
That doesn't help when the lights and sirens are switched on a few dozen cars away and reach you in 6 seconds.
Therefore they need to be very confident in that ten second rule, and naturally we look for cases where it might not work out well.
Where can one locate these specific highways that offer guaranteed legal responsibility? I seemed to have missed it in the article.
So you are in control of the car. Not the trajectory, but you control its velocity. And you are responsible according to tesla.
So you are not in full control of the car then. If a car decides to go in reverse when instead it should go forward and proceeds to hit a pedestrian that was tying his shoelaces behind it. Can you explain how that was an action of a person pressing a button that has no control over the trajectory of a vehicle and why we should consider them somehow responsible for that action (of backing up) instead of the car manufacturer?
> And you are responsible according to tesla.
That is irrelevant for this discussion.
You became liable as soon as you weren't paying enough a attention that someone could apparently sneak up next the car to tie their shoelaces.
What is the point of the feature if I have to come to the car and inspect that there are no blockages around it? Should I then walk to the place from which I intended to use the feature and use it or should I maybe just enter the car seeing that I am expected to circle the car before using the feature?
The rest of society is under no obligation to scale its expectations of your liability in proportion to you getting a perceived return on investment out of your expensive toy.
I.e. maybe you should always walk up to and around the car before using the feature in a public parking lot, and only make use of it to e.g. have the car back out of your own garage, provided that you have a clear view of your driveway being unobstructed.
If my car plows into a tree at 40mph and I get turned to mush that still sounds like a "me problem" to me.
The difference is that Mercedes will have to pay your relatives while Tesla will say "after 2 hours on autopilot the driver wasn't able to take over in a split second"
Neither company really cares about your life and wellbeing, but one is also risking their own money and brand image. I usually trust companies to be good at judging financial consequences
So how does this compare to Teslas FSD (not Autopilot, which really is only an assistant)? The answer is: not much at all. The Mercedes system has limited the conditions to a point, where it basically just has to do collision avoidance with traffic with predictable behavior. It is limited to selected roads. You don't need much "AI" here and for this task, LIDAR excels in the specified weather conditions.
The Tesla FSD system on the other side aims to be a generic driving AI. It has no limitations about on which roads it operates, it uses maps only for navigation to the destination. But the driving operation is done solely by the evaluation of camera footage. Which already works in many more environmental conditions than the Mercedes system.
These systems approach the goal from entirely two directions. The Tesla system aims to be a complete solution, but certainly is not able to do that unobserved in the current state. It is doing reasonably well at that, but the literally billion dollar question is, can it ever get so reliable, that the driver can completely hand over to car ever? On the other side Mercedes has full autonomy, but they achieved that in a very limited and controlled environment - it remains to be seen how much they can extend that.
MB also uses cameras extensively. LIDAR and maps are used in addition.
I wonder whether these approaches will one day meet in the middle.
Using the current machine learning algorithms? Not likely. Imagine releasing a new airplane and telling the pilot - "this airplane flies well in 99% of scenarios, but 1% of the time it refuses to respond to pilot commands and kills everyone on board. We don't know why it happens but we'll keep training the model". That's the state we're currently at with "AI"; as someone put it, it's alchemy. If it works, we don't know why. If it doesn't, we don't know why - but we tune the parameters until it seems to work. We cannot prove it will work for every possible input. ... Not exactly a scientific approach by any means. Such self-driving cars might be accepted in USA but I imagine they'd quickly get banned in Europe after a few random fatalities.
https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
1) Autosteer and active safety features are not "autopilot", its adaptive cruise control.
2) if they think something bad is about to happen, it beeps and hands over control, thus its the drivers fault, as the system wasn't engaged at the time of the crash
3) its not their self driving tech.
2) Tesla count 5 seconds after a disengagement and count it as a fault of autopilot if a crash occurs.
3) It's part of their self driving tech, but it's different to FSD - yes.
If you ask a normal person on the street what "autopilot" means in a car, you'll get a range of answers. But the consistent opinion is that autopilot means that you don't need to concentrate. Most will say that its automatic driving, and will drive for you.
But autosteer requires concentration. Its just sparkling lane assist.
> it's different to FSD - yes.
Which is the point. Its marketing fluff. Autopilot isn't really that, its adaptive cruise control with lane assist. Thats the thing that rankles. All of this stupidity, injury, and noise comes from a marketing decision. One designed to cover up that the CEO over promised and wildly under delivered _yet again_.
They may have the worlds best driver assist features, but they have yet to produce a product that drives itself in any capacity.
https://www.motorweek.org/images/SAE_Chart.png
The SAE is looking at a different performance hurdle between levels 2 and 3: reliability.
"NHTSA's Flawed Autopilot Safety Study Unmasked (2019) - The safety regulator's claim that Autopilot reduces crashes by 40% was based on flawed data and analysis, which it attempted to keep secret.": https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-...
"Tesla Autopilot Safety Stats Said Imbued With Statistical Fallacies, Interpret Cautiously": https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2019/06/09/tesla-aut...
"In 2017, the feds said Tesla Autopilot cut crashes 40%—that was bogus": https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t...
1. NHTSA has reiterated that its data came from Tesla, and has not been verified by an independent party (as it noted in a footnote in the report).
2. Second, it says its investigators did not consider whether the driver was using Autopilot at the time of each crash. (Reminder: Drivers are only supposed to use Autopilot in very specific contexts.)
3. And third, airbag deployments are an inexact proxy for crashes.
... which all sound like really flimsy reasons to conclude "doesn't stack up." A more honest summary based on those would be something like "hasn't been verified by a 3rd party yet."
It's incredible how openly the media makes things up about Tesla, likely just to generate page impressions.
https://twitter.com/Tweetermeyer/status/1488673180403191808
The primary issue is that the data doesn't adjust for road classification in any way. Highway driving, where autopilot is used, has considerably fewer crashes per mile than city driving. Tesla compared Autopilot's rates against all driving rather than just highway driving which would be the relevant metric.
That adjustment alone almost completely eliminates any safety advantage of Autopilot before you get into any of the other adjustments like age.
It's like this:
Tesla: Look how great we are, our apple is redder than their orange.
Critic: It doesn't make sense to compare the colors of those things in that way. Here's why ...
You: So being a redder apple should now be disregarded?
Could you explain the flaw in Tesla data? How is crashes/mile not a good proxy for safety?
If you only engage Autopilot in the easiest situations to drive in, it might look safer artificially because of that.
Comparing a Tesla to all vehicles means old cars with less safety features enter the picture, skewing the statistics again.
But this is not FSD , is a combo of human + some driver assistance, come back when Elon discloses how many times the human was forced to intervene to prevent a crash.
I am wondering why Tesla fans think this stats are proving that so called FSD is safe , don't you understand stats? did PR tricked you,? this proves that soem assistant like one keeping safe distance between cars is safer, make all the data public and let us compute the real stats please.
Well, it exists. Courtesy of Wikipedia:
> In December 2015, Musk predicted "complete autonomy" by 2018. At the end of 2016, Tesla expected to demonstrate full autonomy by the end of 2017, and in April 2017, Musk predicted that in around two years, drivers would be able to sleep in their vehicle while it drives itself. In 2018 Tesla revised the date to demonstrate full autonomy to be by the end of 2019. In February 2019, Musk stated that Tesla's FSD capability would be "feature complete" by the end of 2019. In January 2020, Musk claimed the FSD software would be "feature complete" by the end of 2020, adding that feature complete "doesn't mean that features are working well". In August 2020, Musk stated that 200 software engineers, 100 hardware engineers and 500 "labelers" were working on Autopilot and FSD. In early 2021, Musk stated that Tesla would provide SAE Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021 and that Tesla plans to release a monthly subscription package for FSD in 2021. An email conversation between Tesla and the California Department of Motor Vehicles retrieved via a Freedom of Information Act request by PlainSite contradicts Musk's forward-looking statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Predictions_an...
(Also, incidentally, Musk's decision to use cameras instead of LIDAR – for depth perception etc – is insane and is widely regarded as such. He's doubled down on saying LIDAR is rubbish, since the entire industry has bet on it, and presumably Tesla is too far into the woods to reverse.)
Let me know when humans get lidar implants because they can't perceive depth via their eyes.
[0] https://developer.nvidia.com/drive
Volkswagen is the first traditional automaker showing large investments in software with CARIAD [1], however, according to employee reviews, it‘s very poorly managed (by people who have never worked in software).
[1] https://cariad.technology/
https://electrek.co/2020/11/11/tesla-most-attractive-company...
Elon is the chief designer and chief engineer at SpaceX. If you watch the video referenced in this article and are not convinced that Elon does engineering, then I don’t know what to tell you.
https://observer.com/2021/09/elon-musk-spacex-title-design-e...
Is it stock market price, followers on Twitter, or another criteria?
My claim is that if you narrow it down to actual autonomous driving; lidar + camera + a big chip will beat camera + a very big chip for the foreseeable future.
I don’t know that anyone is shopping for cars based on legal liability of a crash. You are still in the car. You still are injured or die.